


Think Of Me When You Look To The Sea

by make_easter_gay_again



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Depressed Georg, Established Relationship, M/M, andy did a pickup truck so i did a beach house, but not as bad as last time, listen up yall they love each other so much, this one is also kind of depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 19:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19911067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/make_easter_gay_again/pseuds/make_easter_gay_again
Summary: Summer meant the two of them. They decided that early on, and it never faltered. Even when they left that old town and held hands in whatever season they pleased, something about the hot, humid air and the sun lingering so late into the evening felt like home to them. Otto somehow held him closer, kissed him more; let down his guard over the summer. Time passed slowly, but summer never dragged. Things felt full-circle.





	Think Of Me When You Look To The Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hanschen_ril0w](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanschen_ril0w/gifts).



> A very late (but not as late as his) birthday present for my friend Andy (the guy it's gifted to go read his stuff). Title from "To The Sea" by Seafret (god I abuse their music to write ottorg way more often than I should). He says it could branch from Where The Winds Sigh (MY present) but sometimes I like to be an individual. They're similar, but they're not necessarily in the same universe.

Time passed lazily out by the water. From a wooden porch once painted the teal of nearly everything in that tiny town, the December sunset reflected over the water no different than July. Certainly, no snow fell over the roofs to differentiate them. Perhaps the nights brought cooler ocean breeze through screen doors and open windows over the winter months, but that only meant they drew closer together. It meant chests pressed into backs and arms around waists in the quaint kitchen with its ancient appliances. It meant hands on hips and heads on shoulders and that precious silence they never seemed to get enough of. 

Otto couldn’t remember a time he didn’t prefer summer to winter. As a boy, summer meant freedom. It meant no work and no bedtime and no annoying classmates who never seemed to understand the concept of quiet. More importantly, summer meant Georg. The summers they spent together blurred to form one happy memory: set to the backdrop of the tiny patch of yellow grass attached to Otto’s house they called a backyard. Skin turned pink and sore from hours in the sun; sticky sweets dripped down to their elbows, all accompanied by the growing anticipation of the (highly begged for) four-hour long drive to the shore in the backseat of Georg’s mom’s tiny car. Otto remembered waiting, every muscle tensed, for the car to park and the door to unlock so he could finally make his break for the water. For years, as they climbed back into the car at the long end of a long day, Georg would claim to sleep against the door was  _ impossible _ , and Otto would let him fall asleep on his shoulder instead. The door was uncomfortable, Otto thought, and he surely exhausted Georg by dragging him around all day. It was just a nice thing to do for your best friend, right?

Backyards became indoor pools, and they infected their bodies with chlorine on the daily. The overly bleached but still cracked tile walls became their home. Otto taught Georg how to swim, but the lessons consisted mostly of Otto, unaware of how exactly to instruct him, swimming laps back and forth in the hopes he’d pick something up. Georg watched and insisted he was learning. His technique spoke otherwise, but neither of them seemed to notice. Still, spending nearly every day there hardly dampened their spirits as they took their backseat spots for the drive, and the same excitement coursed through their (now considerably longer) limbs. Otto’s eyes stayed glued to the window as the sand came into view, just as they always did. Georg wondered if their sudden apprehension to touch would continue even out here, but Otto’s fingers slipped into his nevertheless to lead him to the water. Somehow, they stuck. 

Summer meant the two of them. They decided that early on, and it never faltered. Even when they left that old town and held hands in whatever season they pleased, something about the hot, humid air and the sun lingering so late into the evening felt like home to them. Otto somehow held him closer, kissed him more; let down his guard over the summer. Time passed slowly, but summer never dragged. Things felt full-circle. Hot July skies never changed, and in the direct sunlight, Georg remembered their higher, younger voices with crystal clarity. 

“Georg, do you know what you’re going to do when you’re grown up?” They lay out on the rough sand, white clouds above their heads having lost any particular shape to point out. 

“I think I like the piano. I like it more than anything else. Maybe I’ll write music and be famous someday.”

“I think you will.”

“I’ve never written anything before.”

“Neither have I. You’d definitely be better at it than me.”

They laughed, even the concept of Otto sitting down at a piano so unusual to them both they found it hilarious. As all jokes did back then, it fizzled out to a strangely comfortable silence until the conversation picked back up or switched to a new topic. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to live out here. On a beach somewhere.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

The simplicity of their ancient conversations would have baffled them if heard word-for-word. The pauses between thoughts seemed to flow naturally, the sound of waves swooping peacefully in to fill the gaps. 

“It’s like you said: I like it more than anything else.”

Georg hummed in agreement. “You’d live in one of those blue houses on stilts. The ones that connect right to the beach.”

Otto smiled. “Yeah.”

“And you’d get to walk barefoot everywhere because no one in these places expects you to wear shoes. You could get those sandwiches for lunch every day, and ice cream.”

“And you could visit me and play me all the songs you write before anyone else gets to hear them. I’d have an extra room in my house for when you visit.”

“You would?”

“Of course I would. I’d even get you a piano for the living room. And we could sit on the back porch and watch the waves, and you’d be famous so you’d like getting out of the big city you live in. It would be like your vacation from all of the attention, plus you’d get to hang out with me.”

“Okay.”

Georg never seemed unhappy to live out where they did. He would rather do anything than go back to living in their old apartment. They could afford a house, so why not get the one they always talked about? He always loved the ability to see the waves from their bedroom window, and the opportunity to observe tourists reacting to the environment he always lived in would never get old. Still, he got hit by that old creativity that used to flow through him sometimes, and on those days he lived at that promised piano in the living room, hunched over until he spent every ounce of energy he possessed. Some days, the cheap, green ukulele that Otto got as a joke gift from Anna for his 20th birthday seemed more his speed. He sat out on the porch and plucked the plastic strings, his feet propped up on another chair. He tried to keep music in his life, but admittedly it slipped from its top spot in his heart.

Since they moved, Otto held that spot. 

What mattered was Otto, not him.

The sun made Georg tired. Otto always left the curtains open after he woke up, meaning Georg baked for however much sleep he got after bidding Otto goodbye. It felt nice, like a blanket wrapped around his shoulders even after he shed the actual blanket. It made him drowsy as he stretched his stiff muscles and trusted his numb legs to hold his weight. 

Sometimes, the thought came to him that someone could write a book about Otto. Some tragic story about a gay boy whose father didn’t care about him, and who only wanted to be a sailor and live out his days on the beach studying fish and turtles and whales and trying to protect them. For a while, his life felt like a novel. As a kid it was his crush on Otto, his piano to vent his feelings, how that led to college and playing in front of crowds and developing his skills and getting the boy of his dreams and— it stopped. He used to live an exciting life of auditioning and playing and  _ feeling important _ , even if something else called the attention his music still added  _ something  _ to it. He used to  _ feel  _ the prose following his every move: the energy flowing through to the tips of his fingers just to hit the keys and how they cramped after performances from overexertion. He missed getting to enjoy Otto’s prose, watch it all roll out in page after page of the man he loved living the life he deserved while knowing his own typed away. 

What he wouldn’t give to hear that typing again. 

He grew lazy after being pulled from that constantly moving environment. He talked Otto into moving them here in the first place by saying he’d still do auditions or find something or someone to play for, but he learned quickly this town didn’t have the capacity for music he grew accustomed to. All of those opportunities lived in the nearest urban area, a solid four-hour drive away. For those who lived in their town, he was the closest opportunity. 

Parents shoved their children into his living room to sit at his piano and plunk their way through whatever book of Disney songs their parents bought them to keep them interested. While it made decent money, the complete indifference of those kids suffocated him. He didn’t know how to teach flat-faced, bored children without the basic foundation of a love for how music made people feel. Otto said when he talked about them he sounded like the old man who yelled at them for years about being quiet and making a nickel a day delivering newspapers when he was their age. Georg would just shake his head out of frustration. 

However, he lived to teach a few of his students. He could boast about them endlessly, even if he only saw them for an hour every week. Each of them had something he saw himself in. One ran in every week with a new original composition to develop. Another carried such an ear for music she could replicate any chord pattern she heard immediately, and improvise some story to go with it. The third played with the technical proficiency of a pro, but he wanted nothing but to be able to really  _ feel  _ what he played. He trusted them all to play his own pieces, and some pieces even found inspiration from their young spirit and energy. They seemed to trust him too, enough to take his advice, and he felt more connected with them than he had with any of his countless piano teachers. 

Yes, the list of ties to this place included those three. Otto’s job, his piano kids, Otto’s happiness, the chairs on the back porch (God, he was an old man sometimes), the Italian restaurant in the middle of town that both seemed fancy and expensive and served the best comfort food he’d ever tasted, and Otto’s pickup truck. 

Otto depended on that truck more than he’d probably ever admit. It really should have been replaced years ago, what with all of its countless issues and outdated machinery that threatened to break down every time he lit the ignition. He kept taking it to get it fixed and painted and upgraded, and by now it probably cost more in repairs than buying a new car would. But Georg knew why he kept it. He remembered just as clearly as Otto that first summer Otto had his license. That summer they convinced their mothers to let them drive down alone to that old beach they knew so well. How they both individually turned to themselves and knew if nothing happened on this trip between them nothing would happen at all. The  _ something _ that happened bound Otto to this truck forever. Georg wouldn’t be any happier to see it go. 

More importantly, Otto depended on that truck to get to and from work every day. If Georg went four hours to the city to whatever would be there for him, Otto would be left with no method of transportation. The repairs left buying another car out of the question. Plus, they lived in a house for God’s sake. A piano teacher and a conservation office intern didn’t quite make bank. Not that level of bank anyway. 

As he did every time these thoughts of his life and his past and how everything lined up made him uneasy, he swung the back door open and walked down the old, rickety, wooden pathway to the sand. The wind that knocked over trash cans and ripped small, light objects from people’s grasps finally died down over the past week or so, and the clouds dotting the sky remained innocent and fluffy. The loose sand gave out under his feet until it packed together from the pressure, allowing him to stand on solid ground. Their next-door neighbors kept their house rented out all summer, and a new family arrived the day before. He saw them now entirely set up for so early in the morning, towels spread out, cooler nearby, father and daughter engaged in a game of catch with a volleyball; little boy lingering where the waves washed over his ankles, inflated floaties attached to his upper arms. From one of the towels, the mother waved at him, that dazed, vacation smile he saw almost daily plastered on her face. He waved back.

Fewer people dotted the beach in the other direction, so Georg set off that way. He kicked a few shells out from the sand but passed over them. One of those kids from earlier would likely wander over and find them, so he might as well make it easier for them. The shells were nice, too, big and unbroken. If the house— and the whole town— weren’t so overly decorated with shells, he’d pick them up. He rolled his eyes at a family of empty (but thankfully unbroken) beer bottles. Otto’s voice scolded his as he tried to walk past them, so he gathered them in his arms and dropped them into the next trash can he passed. He took a hard left and walked towards the surf, letting the groundswell of the waves get closer and closer to him. Shoes in his hands, he walked on. Like an old man, Hanschen would say.

Oh, shit. Hanschen.

One check of his pockets gave him the memory of his phone still sitting on the bedside table where he left it, but not before seeing the time: 9:53. It surely had been more than seven minutes since then. He picked up his pace, eyes squinting in the sun to gauge how far he walked to get to where he was. How he managed to leave the house without remembering his phone or his sunglasses was beyond him. Somehow, in a cage of existential thoughts, he walked what must be nearly a mile. His calves ached by the time he reached the walkway again. He heaved himself to the back door and up the stairs to their bedroom, where three missed calls from Hanschen Rilow lay waiting for him. 

Fortunately, he picked up after only a few rings. “It’s about time, Zirschnitz.”

Georg collapsed down on the bed, exhaustion hitting him like a train. “I’m sorry, I woke up late.” 

“You’re lucky I got distracted by someone else who needed my attention.”

“Hanschen, I don’t want to hear about your morning sex. Especially not this early”

“It’s ten-thirty; if that’s what I had to talk about you’d have to deal with it. And anyway, it’s not about Ernst.”

A muffled voice popped up over the phone, barely loud enough for Georg to hear. The voice of Ernst, the man himself. “You keep your mouth shut!” 

“I am! Don’t you trust me, darling?”

Georg tried as hard as he could to force an actual thought out of his mouth, but while Ernst and Hanschen spoke back and forth, more and more words fell from his mind. Finally, he landed with, “What?”

“Don’t worry, Ernst is just making sure I don’t tell you the secret before we see you in person.”

Ernst spoke up again, much more audible now. “Hanschen!”

“I think we should just tell him. What could hurt?”

“You were the one who wanted to keep it a secret!”

“Yes, I know, I’m a hypocrite.”

“You make it very hard to date you sometimes.”

“I know, darling. I just think we should let him know, so he can be properly happy for us.”

Georg almost breathed a sigh of relief when their conversation continued without him. They fell into white noise in Georg’s mind, as they often did. The urge to block it out raged particularly strong today, though, and Hanschen and Ernst spoke more to each other than they did to him every time. His eyes wandered lazily around his periphery, and when they closed, he did nothing to stop them. His mind took him back out to the wet sand under his feet and the thin sea breeze cutting across his cheeks. The distant sound of those families enjoying however many limited days they’d be this close to the sea echoed in his ears. 

How Otto of him.

“Well, Georg, do you want to know?”

“I guess.”

He missed Otto. This whole place, his whole life felt so fabricated and so perfect that every time Otto left him with his thoughts he worried he’d wake up from whatever daydream this would turn out to be. Every time they used to imagine this house, whether it was Otto’s or both of theirs, it took much longer to acquire. They both got to live their lives before they bid it all goodbye and left society in such a way. The plan was always for Georg to do music, since before they knew what their relationship would be. Otto would listen to his music or help him reach those who knew less with a rounder sound or just step out of the spotlight and let him be the composer he was born to be. Otto surrendered his aspirations because for the longest time he didn’t know what they were. He hadn’t found his music. Their beach house stayed a plan for when their lives slowed down. Ended. Then Otto’s life hit the ground running. He found his life, and the curtains closed on Georg’s before the show could even begin. 

Otto wanted to turn down the job. Other opportunities would come along, he insisted. Separation barely crossed their minds. Neither of them intended to leave the other any time soon. He pushed and shoved to find some sort of compromise, but in the end, his job was, simply put, a job. Georg had no such security with any of the things he booked. So they bought the house, and they picked their designated spots at tables and in the living room and out on the back porch. Otto went to work. Georg found another way to profit off of his skill, even if it wasn’t expected. 

“We got a cat.”

Anna got engaged. Thea wrote for the New York Post. Ernst taught second graders nine out of twelve months a year, and Hanschen studied history and architecture in Greece of all places. Now they had a cat. 

In this house, with this life, he felt numb. Things happened, but never to him. To Otto, or their friends, but never to him. Those paragraphs of detail and dialogue and imagery and metaphors and symbolism wrote themselves for every life but his. 

Things  _ happen  _ in life. Relationships change. Things are thrown at you like rogue dodgeballs and it’s either adapt or get out of the game. You feel fear strong enough to make you shiver and joy enough to make you leap. Life is change and pain and music and light and texture. 

Georg wasn’t living a life. 

He had love. He loved strong enough that maybe everything would be okay if he just focused on that. He loved people and places and things, but still, he felt empty. 

Love amplifies life. Love alone does not make a life. Love alone grows old and dull.

Numb. 

He hung up the phone. Seconds later, the speaker emitted another voice. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Otto said. 

“We need to talk.”

The absence of a response on the other side of the phone scared the shit out of Georg. “Are you okay?”

Suddenly, the stones fell from beneath his feet. A sledgehammer hit his podium of confidence right in the middle, and it sent him toppling to the ground. Back to reality where not everything could be about him all the time and other people’s feelings mattered and would they even have the money for him to actually do anything and—

“Georg, talk to me. What’s going on?”

Why did he think to do this over the phone? God, it sounded like he was breaking up with him. He wanted to yell that that wasn’t happening, that anything but that was happening, that he didn’t know how to convey what was happening because all of his feelings jumbled up and filled his head and he didn’t know what to say or how to explain what he felt without being selfish. 

“You have to promise you won’t hate me, and you won’t freak out because it’s not that big of a deal anyway.”

“Sweetheart, you’re scaring me.” He heard words, muffled and quiet, not meant for him, and the creak of a door opening and closing. He hadn’t realized the voices in the background until they disappeared. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He paced back and forth, not entirely sure how he got there but now unable to stop. His stomach twisted and turned, tying into knots and threatening to heave its contents. “I don’t… I mean, I’m not… fuck, what the  _ fuck.” _

“It’s okay. Just take a breath, and—”

_ “I’m not happy here.”  _ The world stood still. The waves stopped crashing outside the window and the wind stopped whistling by and everyone on the planet held their breath. 

The silence was deafening.

“I mean, I love it here, and I love you and how fucking happy you are, and it makes me fucking happy, but it’s never right. It’s not… enough? God, I’m so fucking selfish.” He took a breath. He collected some sort of coherent thought. “I just keep thinking about… how happy you are to be here. I don’t want to make you feel bad for being happy because I know you and I know you’ll do anything for me and I  _ love you  _ but I need you to just tell me I’m being stupid or that it isn’t realistic or something like that.” 

“You’re not being stupid, Georg. And you’re definitely not selfish.” He cleared his throat. “I love you, man. You know… all I want is for you to be happy.”

“We don’t have to fix this right now. I was being impulsive and you’re at work and it can wait.”

“No, man, we’re going to figure this out.”

“The turtles need you more than I do right now.”

“Oh, fuck the turtles.”

“Otto!” Georg couldn’t help it. He laughed. 

“I’m sorry that my boyfriend matters more than some endangered animal.”

“I think you’ll get fired if they hear you say that.”

“Say what? Fuck the turtles?”

_ “Otto!”  _

It felt stupidly good to laugh, on both ends of the call. Eventually, Otto returned to his turtles, after thoroughly assuring Georg he loved him. Alone once more, Georg let out a breath. 

Finally, he wandered down to the other rooms of the house, finding a couch to lie down on after excitedly testing the keys of his piano as if he’d never touched one before. Plans ran through his head: things he might accomplish, pieces he might write, audiences he might play for. He was getting it all back! 

When Otto got home, he pulled him tight against him and refused to let go. Otto’s arms made him want so badly to stay. Otto’s arms made him miss things before he really had anything to miss. But oh, how much better it would feel to come back to his arms. To come home. 

Packing the truck hurt more than any of the planning. They didn’t pack much, mainly just clothes and assorted home necessities to keep Hanschen and Ernst from hitting the financial spike of an entire person moving in. The sheets were a spare set from their bed; the silverware stripped from their drawers and cabinets. Soon, they would each be supporting one less person. 

It felt a lot like breaking up, all of these goodbyes. The boxes in the bed of the truck, collecting little things that he needed from every room, all of which blended into the atmosphere of the house. It left the rooms almost too empty. Too quiet and echoey. Otto admitted he didn’t know how he’d live with the house like that. He broke up with his chair out on the porch (that one was particularly hard) and that stupid ukulele. Pretty sunsets over the sea and being walking distance from the beach. The rusty mailbox by the front door and the chipped white stairs to the driveway. 

“You’ll be back in a few weeks,” Otto said, gazing up at him from the stone path at the base of the front porch. Georg didn’t have it in him to leave his perch on the stairs. “You know I’ll miss you too much to stay away.”

“It’s such a long drive,” Georg said absentmindedly. 

“So what? I’m going to go insane without you around. It’s like you said, it’s fucking quiet around here.” 

“I’ll call you so much you’ll get sick of me.”

“Impossible.” He offered a hand up, and Georg took it. On the ground, he kissed him, like when they first arrived. When Otto’s excitement exploded out of him and he just wanted to kiss his boyfriend. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Otto nudged his shoulder into Georg’s. “You ready?”

“I think so.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @make-easter-gay-again.
> 
> i promise i'll let georg be happy next time i keep bullying him


End file.
